


Thickened Skin

by moonship



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Dark Elves Are Dicks, Everyone is Dead, Existential Angst, F/M, I'm Sorry Thor, Jane Is Jarnsaxa, Non-Explicit Sex, Not Beta Read, So Is Aether!Jane, Tropes, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 06:26:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1335385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonship/pseuds/moonship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They said their farewells as warriors ought: with bloodied hands, and a Kurse stone gleaming like an ember between them as it slithered past skin and muscle."  Aether!Jane/Malekith. (... part five already hit with the revision hammer to eliminate clunkiness and droning detail as of 4/18.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thickened Skin

First, there had been primordial darkness and the elves in all their stern glory, eternal night, and with the entirety of the universe as _they_ knew it spread out before them. There had been the younger races taking their first steps along the branches of the World Tree: Asgardians. Vanir. Jotun. There had been a wife, children, and the certainty that in some form or another, the unbroken line of Svartalfheim would continue. Malekith's father had watched, his large hands steady on the arms of his throne. There had been bloodshed and a people ground beneath the heel of Bor. There had been the Kursed. Most importantly, there had been the Aether, blazing brightly before inverting into cool darkness.

For the Asgardians, there was no slow, creeping of the light: they had the Ragnarok as the beginning and their end, though Malekith wouldn't know until years had passed. Even then, he never came to think of Ragnarok as the death of an old order and the birth of a new. _Ragnarok_ was an empty Asgard and the realization of thwarted vengeance: _"Scour every last inch of the towns and then do so a second time. Slit the throats of any Asgardians you find. If no blood is to be found here, we find it in Vanaheim. **If not in Vanaheim, then in Hel!"**_

Ragnarok was the whine-and-flash of a grenade tearing a black hole into the space above the Allfather's new throne, and soldiers who were ever stone-faced as their king turned on his heel and strode from the great hall.

Above all, Ragnarok was Jarnsaxa. _Jane-_ incomprehensible to Malekith as the birth of the light and as the death of his civilization.

* * *

The veils between the worlds had weakened slightly, as if the Convergence had never fully ended. It was the Convergence that had awakened him in the barely functioning ruins of his ship—early, with barely a thousand years passing since his battle of wills with the Midgardian child. The Aether had snaked and curled about them both as they struggled for dominance, blacking out his vision as he demanded still _more_ from his failing body. She cut down the Kursed—Algrim, most loyal of friends—before him, and took Malekith's own arm in the process. He'd nearly bitten through his tongue from the effort not to scream, drawing what remained of his magic into his good arm as he readied himself to die as the last king of Svartalfheim.

"We've got something we say on Earth, you know. You live by the sword, you get to die by it," she'd said, breathless and giddy from her moment of triumph. For the moment, she had the strength to withstand the full reality of the Aether's power. He took no comfort in the knowledge it would suck her dry in the end, not with the ruins of his legacy stretching before him. Hair had floated about her face, a film of red over her eyes and for a flash of an instant, he'd thought of a child playing with its father's sword, inches from gutting itself by mistake. _"So this is going to be your last chance. Only shot. **Now get your ship and your guys the Hell off my planet** —"_

Just like a child ready to gut itself in its incompetence.

The next time he'd opened his eyes, it was to nothing more than the hum of the machines that had kept the tattered remains of the svartálfar alive over the past millennium. He was the first to return, aware as only the king could be of the sudden shift in reality. As the scant hundred warriors left in his care opened their own bright, blue eyes, he stared blankly at the dented hull of his ship. They shifted, raised the visors of pale-faced helmets as the feeling slowly returned to stiffened limbs. Malekith saw none of this, and knew only one thing: for the first time, the Aether did not call him.

* * *

They waged war in pockets of Vanaheim they could reach before the tears vanished and reformed somewhere else. With a single-minded intensity that bordered on madness, Malekith hunted for those weak spots for his army to pass through with a single-minded intensity that bordered on madness. This 'Convergence' was nothing like the last: it was far more unstable and even more impermanent. They tore the limbs from the shambling, undead things in Hel, forced to retreat with their captives as quickly as they'd come lest they find themselves trapped. The pathetic skirmishes never lasted long enough for Malekith, who fought like one of the Jotunn in spite of his one arm. He was a blur of pale skin and scarring, of crescent-shaped sword, and magic. He was the man who once held the holy Aether in his grasp without being consumed, and to Vanir children he was the stuff of nightmares.

Between battles, he spent long nights striding the gleaming road of the Bifrost. He worked magic on the stump of his missing arm as he pondered over the gate between the worlds. With its guardian and key gone, Malekith had no way to learn its secrets other than trial and error: prisoners of war were hurled into the Realms of his choice, but he never succeeded in pulling them back. He left them to die on the frozen wastes of Jotunheim, or dumped them back where they'd come from—again, _again_. When there were no captives and no blood to spill, he waited for nightfall, when the light was least painful. Alone, he would stand too close to the shattered edge of the rainbow bridge, staring for hours on end at the black spot blotting out the stars of which the Asgardians were so fond. That rip in time and space was so dark and endless that the sight of it caused his breath to hitch in his throat.

He was doing just that the night the Aether finally whispered to him, tugging at his senses with spidery red-dark fingers.

* * *

Malekith followed that thread to the Realm of Midgard, not particularly surprised as to where it led. Nor was he surprised by the great, twisted heaps of metal and concrete that had been grown over by ivy and moss. Thick tree roots burst from the broken windows of buried vehicles, and as the ship they'd taken continued on at his direction, there was still more green along with large stretches of water that hurt to look at without his mask in place.

On the occasions he left the ship, there was always a drizzle from overhead, just light enough to bring a welcome coolness. When he did so, he always raised the mask just enough to breathe deeply of fresh air, sliding his tongue over his lower lip to sweep away the bit of dampness that gathered there. After a thousand years, Midgard was reminiscent of a forming scar: new flesh covering an ugly gouge. Part of him was tempted to rip it open all over again just to watch it bleed.

The Midgardians were few in number and difficult to find, existing in small camps and walled settlements meant to keep them safe from marauders who'd miraculously found their way from other worlds and into a realm full of fresh, tender meat and easily-breakable slaves. They cut swathes through the marauders themselves: the hard-eyed mortals with their heavy jewelry and clothing vaguely reminiscent of Asgard weren't worth the moments it would take to strike them down—on foot or from the skies. Now and again, they still found it necessary to leave the corpse of a human upstart in their wake as a warning. The blood from those twisted bodies was the reddest thing he saw those long weeks, but in the rare times he slept, he always woke sweating and with the faintly ozone taste of Aether on his tongue.

* * *

The same single-minded obsession that had led him to the Infinity Stone so long ago had brought it within his reach a third time. His warship hovered over the human settlement, an ugly, dark smudge in the gray sky that sent the people below into fits of terror. Parents grabbed their children and fled for the supposed safety of trees, or below ground into shelters painstakingly dug and reinforced by hand. Futile as it was, a gate of stone and weathered metal dropped with a _clang_. Flanked by his men, Malekith disembarked, the fingers of his one remaining hand clenching into a fist of anticipation at his side.

There was a Midgardian behind those gates holding what was his by right, foolish and no doubt half dead as the weapon slowly ate away at their insides-

 ** _"Break it down!"_ ** The words were familiar, but he had no memory of saying them- nor did he care if he'd spoken them before: _**"We have Midgardians to kill!"**_ He raised his arm, made a sharp, slashing motion toward the gate as he bared his teeth. As the heavy, repeated clang of a gate being battered rang in his ears, he exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Behind his mask, he smiled for the first time in years, the expression fleeting and very easy to miss. Magic gathered at his fingertips, cold and bright as the heart of a star— _'My legacy, Bor— now is where I reclaim what was taken-'_

The gates buckled inward to reveal nothing more than an expanse of hard, packed earth and flimsy buildings hung with battered metal shields more ornamental than useful. He faltered for all of a moment as realization dawned, bellowed above the lot of them to indicate they should hold— _**"Enough!"**_

 _'Enough,'_ he demanded of _himself_ , a hairsbreadth from losing control as he well and truly understood what he was seeing. The truth of it all was bitter, cruel, and just one more thing to endure. He would be calm and bide his time, and they would _endure_ as ever-

A gritty sort of mist that might-have-been-red and could-have-been-black formed where her feet touched the ground. The rough hem of her skirt whipped violently around her, fabric clinging to her legs and thighs as she rose to the tips of her toes and then scant inches into the air. She was shrunken and somewhat hard all at once, as if the magic within her had ground at and refined her body time and again until it had what it wanted of her. She met his gaze without hesitation, a widow and a bereaved mother. She was host to the Aether and the near-Queen of Asgard: Jarnsaxa. Once, she had been the woman called Jane Foster, and now she _waited,_ gaunt-faced and narrow-eyed.

* * *

**Author's Note Part Deux: So I watched the movies again and this was in serious need of some fixing. Italics indicate the use of foreign language. Damn Dark Elves. Revised as of 3/25/14.**

Author's Note: So, uh- hi. I have no idea what I'm doing with this, but I had a brain bug and it wouldn't go away until I wrote something. This is obviously AU with entirely too much time-shifting back and forth, not to mention a likely OOC Malekith. I'd like to thank fairfarrenlovelylydia for writing the first Jalekith (only?) Jalekith fic I've ever found! Also, a shout-out is due to LadyElemental: I was pretty stuck on how I wanted to proceed. She was one smart cookie who made use of the name Jarnsaxa, who happened to be Thor's Special Ladyfriend in Norse mythology. From there, it led me to looking up a few things I'd forgotten, and then deciding to butcher the concept of Ragnarok. All due props to you if you're reading this, LadyElemental! (Jarnsaxa: she used it first, boys and girls.) Now... should I kill this in a pile of fire or consider continuing? If you have thoughts on the matter, or find any glaring errors in the story, feel free to let me know!

Disney owns them. Please don't sue me, Walt.


	2. Sanest Choice

 

She’d been Jane: just _plain Jane ._  In her last years as a mortal, her world had been a fury of calculation and _thought_ _,_ Erik sighing his exasperation, and Darcy underfoot. Her life was full. Thor with his bright smile and big, warm hands had been larger than life, and for a time, she’d had to shove aside parts of… _Jane_ to make room for him. Then, there'd been _Convergence_ : all boiled down to a crack in a pillar where the Aether had smoldered like a dying fire, waiting for her to reach out her fingers and touch . Jane in all her good-hearted naivety was as good as dead the second it _grabbed_ her, tried to suck her into itself before seeping _into_ her instead. If that hadn’t been the moment her life as Jane Foster came to an end, then that end certainly came in Svartalfheim-- with Loki, with Thor-- and yes, with _Malekith._

    Thor had been writhing on the ground, clutching the stump of his hand. While she’d probably screamed, she never remembered actually _doing so_ _._ Her reality had become much smaller: the thud of the witch-king’s boot as it connected with Thor’s side, and how she hated _helplessness . Reality_ was the way her blood had roared in her ears, and how easily she’d been raised into the air by a single, powerful sweep of his Malekith’s arm. _‘_ _Look at me,’_ Malekith had told Thor, but the words only seemed to register when he glared up at _her_ , hard-faced and full of a hatred she couldn’t begin to understand.

_Look at me._

Red and _gritty_ , the Aether had sifted from her ears and the corners of her mouth, as if she were breathing out bloody sand. In her mind’s eye, she saw darkness without end, and then dark-skinned elf children with white hair splashing about in glassy water. She smelled the stink of countless bodies and saw the sun die.  Then, she saw the way his head snapped back, and the way his jaw opened wide enough to swallow the entirety of the world. All she could think as the long threads of Aether joined them together like they were all one warped, single organism was: _'_ _Don’t you think about it, don’t you think I won’t let you you'll never hurt him--' “No--”_ She’d gagged; he’d convulsed. Where one lost an inch, the other gained. Once, the Aether had been in them _both_ at the same time--

A slip of the foot-- a weakening of the will as a shred of blackened skin detached from his face, and Jane had it _all_ _._ Breathing and knowing only red, she'd towered over the three of them. Her body was burning, _twisting_ inside, and even with the pain, it was worth all of the hurt to keep Thor safe, strong, and with that warm light in his eyes. _‘ Look-- at-- me--’_ she mouthed silently, and that time, meeting Malekith’s cold, resigned gaze was like watching empires fall. When she lashed out, she killed the monster next to him for _Frigga._

Malekith’s arm, she took to make a point.

* * *

 

Jane had liked to rattle off energy transfer equations to ‘scientifically’ prove her point that it was love that had ‘brought’ the Aether back to her. She’d been missing her van and her work, too tired from the alien force twisting her body and thoughts to deal with Asgardian superiority when she went to pore over their technology. Her little pseudo-scientific jokes about the entire situation, and trying to keep in good spirits was better than sitting around and feeling sorry for herself. Thor would merely slide an arm about her waist and smile gently, laughing into her brittle hair, never doubting in her strength.

She continued to call herself Jane for the next two hundred years, but her life on Earth was over long before: the host of the Aether was too dangerous to leave among Midgardians. In spite of her game face, the realization hurt, and it was difficult for her to keep up a good front at all times. Her body was continuing to grow, she found herself wanting to just let some power out, and she couldn’t keep up her old, hectic pace of living. Minutes before the first Aethersleep had taken her, she'd wept, but closed her eyes and turned her head away so Thor couldn’t see the tears. One hundred years had passed before she'd come back to herself, her overgrown legs hanging over the edge of the bed  Jokingly, Thor called her his _jotunn_ : his giant. Jane had smiled again, loving him all the more for his gentleness as he answered her questions about friends and family long dead-- even as she’d wanted to let loose a red-and-black tendril of energy to slam his head into the floor until his skull was crushed.

* * *

 

The Asgardians liked their weaponry enough that it was part of their wardrobe. She took a shine to the small, ornamental blades that doubled as keys and tools: they were pretty _and_ useful. Having them on hand reminded her of being an undergrad, carrying trays of this and that back and forth across tables to lab classes.  The knives were comforting the way days spent badgering Heimdall about the Bifrost were, or the nights she passed flying her little ship through the skies. Jane rattled and clattered enough that Sif took to calling her ‘Iron-Knife’. It was a nickname she liked, and as she became more accustomed to the Asgardian lifestyle, it was only natural to become Jarnsaxa—the iron _seax_ , and the mother of Magni.

* * *

 

 “You’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to you.” There was an odd, gentle way in which he spoke the words, and it jolted Jarnsaxa back to _‘_ _Jane’_ _,_ watching Frigga’s body crumple to the ground.

 

 _‘ Return it,’_ Jane thought, following the natural flow of his thoughts. They’d fought like children over a favorite plaything all those years ago-- children playing games with the fate of the Realms. _‘_ _You have something, child. Give it back.’_ There was nothing said of his arm, or even his humiliation at Svartalfheim. He spoke of _the Aether ,_ as if it were the only thing he could see. He was so focused, dead-set on his target and his ultimate goal that she couldn’t even find him cruel. Obsessed, and even lacking room for anything but _rage_ \-- but not cruel.

 _“It always belonged to me.”_ She answered him in his own tongue; saw the flicker of surprise on his scarred face. Dangerous as he’d always viewed her, Odin had decided keeping a potential enemy close was better than a failed attempt at destroying her: Jarnsaxa learned of the Nine Realms at his feet, the conveniently abridged version of Svartalfheim history included. _‘_ _I keep the Aether and I remember--’_

_“You heard me .”_

He watched as she drifted back toward the ground, the clouds of dust she’d managed to stir up in that fierce wind almost immediately snuffed out by the light rain. Blue eyes raked her top to bottom, taking in everything from how slight she’d become, down to the little rings she wore on her toes. _“Yes,”_ was all he said, as if he had no words left in him but for those meant for the battlefield. Then, _“_ _I have until the end of this universe to listen. Not even you can outwait me.”_

There was nothing to be done other than to hold his men back. It didn’t take any real effort to do so; their faces behind their death-mask helms were both frightened and reverent. Malekith didn’t show any signs of fear, but she knew he’d prepared himself for every possible scenario but _her ._ He was merely still as a statue, _watchful_ _,_ and impossibly aware of the Aether that had called him there. Come fire and damnation, through the floods and ice that once ravaged Midgard, and from across the depths of endless space, he would follow the Aether to its source. If she let herself truly _think_ about that, it frightened her.

 _“Well,”_ she acknowledged with the faintest of smiles. _“I’m dying anyway.”_

_“I already knew. It can still be done-- surrender to me the Aether and I’ll delay long enough for you to live out the rest of your life in peace.”_

_“No.”_

Silence grew taut between the two of them: Jarnsaxa who had been Jane and the one-armed witch-king called the Accursed. Thousands of years ago, diplomacy had fallen by the wayside, left to rot with the corpses of his wife and children. During Malekith’s reign, ‘diplomacy’ was like ‘treaty’ or ‘parlay’: they ceased to exist. ‘Stand-off’ was equally unheard of, for all that there was nothing to be done but _allow_ her turn her back to him.

“ _Tell what’s left of your men--”_ Were there women there? She couldn’t tell--   _“to put down their weapons.”_ She hadn’t set foot in Asgard in… how long? How long had it _been_ _?_ Unlike his voice, there was nothing _gentle_ about her smile. She was rough and wild-haired in her brown shift, and too tired to pretend she felt benevolent.   _“_ _Accursed.”_ He gave her another slight reaction, there in the way his lips tightened and his jaw clenched. _“I need your ship to get back to Asgard.”_

Jarnsaxa left him shaken as a man who’d sacrificed thousands of people ever _could_ be unsettled, treating his soldiers like an afterthought and letting him nurse his growing anger as she picked her way across the town and back to her own little house. Outside, she heard Malekith barking orders. While he did so, she ran fond fingers over her battered machines with their lovingly polished surfaces, took the time to write letters to the fragile, mortal people she called ‘friends’. She wrote to them of the community two hundred miles away where they learned to create ship batteries from fallen Asgardian energy stones, to avoid the main roads on their way there, and that Anders Starksson didn’t mind sharing a few secrets in exchange for a lifetime supply of honeybeer.  

 

 

Last of all, she wrote: **_‘Never forget the tasers._ **

****

**_Regards,_ **

****

**_Dr.  Iduna Haldorsdottir’_ **

 

 

‘Iduna’ took plenty of time to see her affairs were in order, but no time to comfort the frightened faces peering out from distant trees. Instead, she spent fifteen minutes making sure her old circlet of heavy, Asgardian make was free of tarnish, gently applying the force of the Aether as needed to push out any dents. It felt uncomfortably cold where it pressed against her forehead  She left with a bag of clean clothes on one shoulder, Magni’s heavy sword strapped to the other. The sandals she wore on her feet were impractical and delicate as the circlet itself, but the cloak on her shoulders was heavy and warm, the boots tucked under her arm sturdy and plated with steel.

    Outside, the drizzle had become a rainstorm that plastered her hair to her head and the thin cloth of her dress to her hips and breasts. She went to him as the host of the Aether, dressed as a queen turned beggar. He was waiting, immovable and _annoyed_ as she squelched in his direction, picking her way across the mud with the aid of a gnarled, red-runed stave. Nature itself had the common decency to snap their cloaks for them, but even the Aether couldn’t have stirred up dust at that point.  

    The way he took her gracefully extended hand was _decorous_ _,_ oddly refined for all that his strong fingers bruised her. He raised it to eye-level, staring at the spidery red lines below the skin as if they were something fascinating and offensive to him all at the same time. His attention lingered on her chapped lips when he glanced up, then on the circlet at her brow before their eyes met yet again. Hers weren’t red, the way they had been in Svartalfheim as they battled with hearts and wills for control of the Aether.

 _“ Who are you?”_ Malekith asked bluntly, though question itself was carried on something that was part hiss of frustration, part sigh. Jarnsaxa wanted to laugh as she realized all she’d been to him before Svartalfheim was a random mortal who happened to have something he wanted.

    “Jarnsaxa.” She fell into step beside him and into the magical shield he’d summoned earlier to keep himself dry while waiting.

    _“_ _It’s an **Asgardian** name,” _ he grit out lowly, his confident steps not so much as faltering. He had one of the deepest voices she’d ever heard, and the sound of it only served to make the way they ascended the gangplank to the ship more… processional. By mute agreement, they’d decided to make it all seamless the second her bony hand settled in his pale one. The host of the Aether and the King of Svartalfheim would be seen as a man and woman in accord with one another.  
    _“_ _Then call me Ivdel, or Asahem, or Thalasa.”_ Dark Elven names, spoken as a twist of the knife to goad him further. _“_ _I’ve had plenty of names over the last thousand years.”_ She could slip in and out of them like she had her cloak, or the way she’d changed her dress for something thinner and more transparent when wet. She wouldn’t answer to ‘Bitch’ or ‘Whore’ or even ‘Woman’, but he could call her by the given name of his choice and she’d break it in like she would a new pair of boots or a new piece of optical equipment-- so long as he never tried to call her Jane.


	3. Pressure

Malekith would watch her from the gangway on occasion, gripping the guardrail hard enough his knuckles turned gray. 'Jarnsaxa' treated the vessel like a work of art she couldn't wait to explore or understand, coaxing words out of rarely-used throats as she asked questions about magnetic fields, the methods they must have used to navigate in utmost darkness, and how they used to slip so seamlessly between the Realms. Everything they had was 'very different', she insisted. She touched screens and switches with clever hands, navigating her way through the processes with blue console light and the aid of exceedingly uncomfortable soldiers.

In those early days- and on occasion, in the far-spanning years when pale-haired svartálfar boys and girls were running barefoot along the shores where his own children used to play- Malekith was forced to remind himself his purpose was to live as a leader, not a man. He was a vessel, devoid of any purpose but wiping the skies clean of stars. There was no Algrim left to nudge him back on course in the rare moments he threatened to stray. Asgard was a Realm where vengeance had been taken by another, its halls and towns empty but for patrolling soldiers wearing white, vacant masks. For the time being, even the Aether was beyond his grasp.

For her part, 'Jarnsaxa'- _thief, Asgard's harlot, unworthy, blessed, touched by the approving sands of cities long fallen to ruins-_ was unconcerned about her situation. Give or take a thousand years, the Aether would burn her to nothing as if she were one of the Kursed. Instead of _readying herself_ , she hurried around the ship at all hours, peering at blue console lights and muttering under her breath as she did so. Sometimes, she bumped into things, overconfident in her ability to make her way in the 'darkness'. The staff would clang against a wall, giving away her presence even if she was out of sight, and effectively ruining the air of spare elegance she tried to convey in her worn clothes and pretty jewelry.

He never had to listen for the clang. When she was nearby, he felt the tug of the Aether as if it were gently mocking him, or as if the weapon was stirring beneath her skin and readying to burrow beneath his own. Not long after, he would hear a hiss of pain when she banged her knee, or the light clanking of her boots. Always, Malekith would close his eyes—one half-blind, the other clear-sighted as ever- and remind himself to wait. As he outwaited the guardians, so would he outwait Jarnsaxa.

* * *

'Meals' were little more than soft, tasteless squares to unwrap. They were engineered to provide necessary nutrients and to suppress the pangs of hunger during endless campaigns. Nonetheless, they always ate together in the captain's cabin that had once been Algrim's and that belonged to her for the duration of the flight. He made no attempt to hide his daily visit to her room, leaving the others to draw their own conclusions. Malekith knew without asking it suited Jarnsaxa as well. There was— _accord_ , just as there was in the village where she'd been passing for one of the Midgardians.

They always ate in silence, taking longer than necessary. One day, she paused, the pad of her thumb lingering at a corner of her mouth. There was a crumb stuck just to the side of her upper lip. She said to him, _"I've been thinking of a new name for myself._ " She never spoke as formally as he did, but he recalled she sounded different when she was young, that she didn't used to have little lines that showed at her forehead when she was lost in thought.

Malekith glanced up from his chalky ration bar and said only, _"You have a name."_ As the frown lines appeared again, he once more pondered her existence. To take the Aether into oneself was a sacrifice: it was not sympathetic to the frailties of its hosts. She had welcomed the force of it in, fought for it in reckless foolishness and motivated by nothing more than juvenile love. Just like Asgardians, her kind bled out quickly enough with a blade buried in their side: Algrim would have dispatched her at the first opportunity had Malekith not been half-mad with pain and _greedy_ for what was rightfully his.

' _A single blade in the side,'_ he thought darkly. As if she knew what he was thinking, she tightened her fingers about her 'dinner' until it crumbled onto the tabletop. There was nothing of the woman who ambled through his ship as if it were her possession. She was remembering youth and hiding away while the woman who protected her crumpled to the floor. _He_ was remembering the false illusion of her, wide-eyed, but stubborn and ready to face her fate with some dignity.

" _Well?"_ she asked, and he was acutely— _aware_ she was an instant away from doing something that was going to infuriate him.

When she spoke again, she said his mother's name, that it 'made a nice sound' and she would take it for herself if she didn't find anything she liked better. Her cruelty was far more subtle than his; he could tell by the quick, thoughtful flash of a smile that passed over her face. Struck speechless, he sat back heavily in his chair. The Aether had carried a part of him with it, capricious and unpredictable as any old power, seeding itself in her mind and planting memories long forgotten to anyone but himself.

It was to his credit that he merely recited the names of his ancestors in his mind instead of giving in to the urge to draw his blade: ' _Jazal who begat Nachte who begat Gramal who-'_

_Was there ever a Jazal, or had it been-_

He couldn't finish his train of thought. The implications of her words were too much for him to take in at one time. She merely picked a crumb up off the table and popped it into her mouth, tilting her head to one side as she drew invisible equations on the tabletop. She left streaks on the metal wherever she 'drew'. _"You dare much, Jarnsaxa,"_ he finally said, his face smoothed out to its careful, unfeeling blankness. Her neck was small and would be very easy to snap. _"Get out."_

She left him in her own chambers, and he counted it a shallow victory against her.

' _Gramal who begat Hekhem who begat Kitharn who begat Malekith who begat-'_

Six names in, he realized he'd forgotten to include some earlier, less important king and started over from the beginning.

* * *

Malekith slept less and less often, plagued by flashes of concrete Midgardian jungles and clever hands with badly chewed fingernails writing primitive formulas out on paper whenever he tried to rest. Instead of sleeping, he paced, he planned, and he rushed the growth of his arm. He did too much too soon, pushing himself to the extent that the repeated rituals and the pain that accompanied them left him retching and half-conscious. Jarnsaxa must have known the reason for it, yet said nothing. By then, she'd already found her own tasks to satisfy her insatiable desire for knowledge.

Not long after the dreams began, she came to his room for the first time. He recognized her approach by the odd prickle began at the back of his neck, and in the whisper of old magic spreading along the scarred side of his face and down the spindly, reforming arm strapped to his chest.

There was a sudden _thunk_ followed by a soft hiss of pain as she bumped into storage crates that were moved there for two reasons: the sake of convenience and the fact he now thought her too confident in her ability to navigate his ship. With nothing more than a smug twitch of his lip, he went back to work on his overhead diagrams. Projected screen was layered upon projected screen, jammed with as much information and snatches of thought as he could fit upon them. He drew the branches of the World-Tree for the thousandth time and willed her on, preoccupied and not particularly wanting to deal with another of their stand-offs unless he could end it with a dagger jammed into her eye socket.

He expected the courtesy of her announcing herself as much as she planned to do so, which was not at all.

" _You can't move through the Realms the way you used to,"_ she said as she joined him. She always arrived as an equal, like the Aether-keepers who had walked alongside his ancestors in times of great peril. While she limped slightly from her hallway 'accident', she was leaning less heavily on her stave that evening. Nonplussed, and with his jaw already tightening in response, he gave a curt jerk of his chin that passed for a nod of acknowledgment. The movement was less of a 'hello' as it was an 'I see you breathe and walk.'

" _Are you one of us then, focused on the slightest of our inconveniences?"_

He never called her 'Jarnsaxa' if he could avoid doing so, deliberately choosing his words in such a way he never had to use her name. Names were sacred things, and he had no use for the way she tossed them aside. He had even less use for her and the spare elegance with which she moved now, or the way she wielded the Aether as if it were an afterthought and not the last hope of a dying people.

" _What kind of answer is that?"_ she gave him an impatient glance, one he thought lingered too console screen with its blue glow continued to emit its soft beeps and clicks as Malekith drew lines and whorls through the air, the movements charted across the screen as he linked Realm to wormhole. She stretched out her own hand, rising to the tips of her toes as she reached out and erased a line of data. _"Here, the disruption of the spirit energy at these coordinates-"_

He grabbed her arm without thought for the consequences- and not just because she was _wrong_ about the placement of a distant black hole influencing the placement of the next portal to Asgard. Her hair stirred bout her gaunt face, eyes darkening to a color he knew _too well_. ' _Use it, and burn yourself away.'_ She did nothing more than twist her wrist free as the Aether fell from her fingertips, warning him away with nothing more than that single gesture.

His temper frayed from lack of sleep and the utter strain of her invading everything from his work to the hidden corners of his mind, he took a purposeful step forward. Cloaked in her own magic, she held her ground, close enough her breasts brushed against his chest. For the first time in a very long while, Malekith _wanted._

" _With or without the Aether, you overstep yourself,"_ he whispered harshly, his breath hot against her ear and the skin of her neck. She was too close, too _warm_ , and he could see delicate threads of red running just beneath the skin in response to his nearness. They stood that way for far too long, coldly silent in spite of the coiling tension between them and the beckoning ripple of Aether that refused to give him any peace.

" _I will be waiting for the moment you are at your weakest and when I have finished, your sacrifice will have no meaning. I will burn away the very memory of your husband's family and strike down whatever rises to take their place in Asgard."_

" _No,"_ she said calmly, the way she _always_ said the word: no, he would not have the Aether. No, she would not condemn the Asgardians, in spite of what they had done _._ No, she would not give in fully to the sweet, slow pulse of the Aether and follow its will to the end. Always ' _no'._ Jarnsaxa tucked a strand of hair behind her ear in a way that he could only describe as thoughtful and preoccupied, as if she were already thinking too hard about what he said. _"And you never will."_

" _Shall I tell you stories of your Asgardians?"_ he asked caustically. _"You can listen to the old tales in the old tongue—instead of pushing them into a corner of your mind."_ He understood now that she was one of few left alive who _knew_ them in all their pride and brilliance, how their ships once sailed unadorned skies. He could twist the knife in her side as well as she could jab at him, and he was glad to do so: she held the Aether, but he would not be her passive toy while she waited to die. With an awkward hand, he traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. There _was_ no kindness, there—malice, perhaps, but no kindness.

Jarnsaxa turned her head sharply and tried to bite his hand in retaliation for that. He yanked his thumb just in time to save it from her teeth, startled by how _surly_ and _undignified_ she was when patronized—nearly as startled as he was by how close they were, and the way he'd started to touch her.

" _I've crawled over the back of the World Serpent—don't think it'd be hard for me to take off a finger with my teeth."_

" _You have taken **worse** ," _he answered curtly.

Unrepentant, she stepped around him so she could take a closer look at the map etched out on one of the screens. " _You_ _ **deserved**_ _worse. I gave you mercy instead."_

Control—without control, everything fell to pieces.

As if they'd never stood chest to chest and as if he'd never touched her the way a man did a woman, he gestured toward a curved, bright line on the screen that flared out like a lens at the edges. _"You came about Asgard. Look, there."_

" _I see it,"_ she said, the lights from the console flickering off of her face. She sounded rather _distant_ then, her gaze unfocused. _"Right there where the portal to Jotunheim was."_

" _One setting of your Midgardian sun, two at the most—that should please you well enough."_

" _It does."_

* * *

The second time, she came to him white-faced and smelling faintly of wine from the cryogenic storage. They were a hairsbreadth from Asgard that night, and the fact she was _out of time_ was how he knew to expect her. The muscles of his shoulders were bunched tight as he let her inside, and he saw the outline of her body was clearly visible through the whisper-thin fabric of a shift. She'd no doubt taken it from one of the female soldiers: a gift from an old lover of theirs, perhaps, or something purchased on a whim. He didn't care—for better or worse she was there, trying to give the whole affair some sort of dignity. That alone was enough to keep him from showing her the way back out.

They lapsed into their silence as she helped him off with his armor, slightly clumsy fingers bumping the breastplate against his arm and prompting him to wince. _"Are you afraid?"_ he asked, and the glint of red in her eyes was frightening and beautiful all at the same time. He could tell she was—not of him, but from remembering her years in Asgard and her beloved who would never understand or forgive what they were about to do in the darkness. He bit out the words that were easier than kindness, using spite to build the wall between them ever higher. " _Were you thinking of your Asgardian when you decided to come to me like a wife?"_

She bloomed to life before him, lashing out with the power she hoarded so greedily and using it to raise him high, slamming Malekith back with an audible clang where his boots struck the wall. Pinned there, he didn't struggle, welcoming the sight, as well as the sharp flare of pain that spread from the back of his neck clear down to his hips. _"He was better than you will ever be,"_ she grit out in her stilted way of speaking that was a mix of base Midgardian and centuries among the elite of Asgard. _"So was his mother."_

He regarded her down the length of his proud nose, half-stripped of his armor and with his eyes heavy-lidded. "' _Iron-Knife'- I do not_ _ **care.**_ _"_ She dropped him with no warning, braids rustling at the back of his neck as he hurtled toward the floor. Malekith landed in flat-footed crouch and with grunt of pain, breathing heavily as he pushed himself back to his feet.

Jane-turned-Jarnsaxa drew in a shuddering breath, conflict written all over her face. " _Come here,"_ she said at last, pale and drunk and extending her hand with all the benevolence of a woman who could strike him down with but a thought—and who repeatedly decided not to do so. She took a step back toward his bed, beckoning with a crook of her fingers and a gentle shiver of magic that brought to mind the sands of Svartalfheim in the Time Before. " _It's been cold."_

Her shift fluttered black-and-silver. Malekith went to her willingly through the fog of Aether, brushing his knuckles lightly along her cheek before she snuffed out even the faintest traces of light. There was anger and dislike between them, but just as much _want_ , and a synchronicity that no one left alive was able to understand. Hers was the only face he saw among endless numbers of the faceless, the only name left for him to speak, and though she kept the weapon from him; she held the great hope of his people.

Both of them had known this was coming- one way or another, in peace or in violence. Better now than in Asgard, where it would be nothing but spite and guilt.

The first time was quick and perfunctory: it had been so long for him, and Jarnsaxa was warm and obliging now that she'd made her decision. The second time lasted longer, and he took her with all the long-repressed frustration within him as they struggled for dominance on the bed, clutching at one another. Gray bled into his white skin as Aether flowed between them, slithering along clenching fingers and straining shoulders. Wrapped in the black weight of it, neither of them saw or cared.

" _Tell me your name."_

" _Jarnsaxa."_

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: 
> 
> First Off: You AO3 folks have been just lovely. Thanks for all your nice comments and for the kudos! I know this isn't exactly the sort of thing people would rush to read in the "Thor" fandom, so it's been great knowing there are people who enjoy this!
> 
> Next: Sooo… … I don’t even know. Expect periodic revisions as I find plot holes in a story based around a cinematic universe full of plot holes. I should probably apologize to God and man-- I wrote and revised this while intoxicated and anything written here probably seemed like a good idea at the time. If there's some interest in Jane and Malekith doing Things Grown-Ups Do, I could probably toss out a cheap and tawdry side story on request.
> 
> This is looking like it’s going to be more interaction and low plot, but as I write this, I get the impression it’s going to span a Long Damned Time. For the third time: … I don’t even know. As ever, every conversation is taking place in Malekith's native language, so italics= gutteral manlyspeak.


	4. Footprints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even the stars change if given enough time. Nuclear fusion reaction in the core of the stars convert one element to another and--’ Jarnsaxa rested her head against the stave and exhaled softly, little tongues of dark smoke curling from her lips. ‘Everything changes, and matter is never destroyed.’

On the day they arrived, Jarnsaxa rose early and scrubbed the traces of Malekith from her body.

She left him to the light sleep of a troubled man, instead scrubbing her skin raw before anointing her wrists and neck with scented oil. Rather than brood over last night, she unfolded her best clothes from the tattered bag that contained parts of her life as Iduna. (It was best when one could fit the contents of their life into a single bag, and she found this time was no exception.) Pulling the red dress over her head, she let the bright cloth slither past her hips until the hem touched the floor. The circlet was uncomfortable as ever, and she set aside her ridiculous little sandals for boots better suited for walking.

"I'm not ready," she said to Algrim's empty rooms. They didn't answer, and quite frankly, she would be concerned if they _did._

With a twitch of her hand to summon her weapon, Rauðr settled against her palm with a light _smack_ of impact. All polished wood in spite of its twisted surface, the stave was her personal _Mjolnir_ without a fraction of its power, and the only weapon with which she had any small skill. Thor once told her every Asgardian worth their salt needed a weapon with a name all its own. Sif spent long hours with her after they'd settled for the stave, grimacing every time Jarnsaxa struck herself in the face during the drills. The truth was that she preferred the soft, sinister ripple of the Aether to get her point across, but using something so destructive to shape the universe to her will was Malekith's way—and for all her character flaws, Jarnsaxa was no Malekith.

Denial was a pleasant thing sometimes.

She managed to slip her way through the chaos of a crew preparing to disembark from a ship large enough to hold the remains of a dying people. It helped that the soldiers always moved back so _helpfully_ when they saw her pass by, as if she might strike them down at any moment. The last leg of her flight was going to be… bumpy, and she didn't feel like shoving her way past them all to get to the nearest cargo bay. It was easy to use what she'd learned the past several days to override the safety commands and open them- if one ignored the way said doors jerked up and down, or the alarms that screamed their protest as she did so.

' _No,_ ' she thought, using one hand to hold the circlet to her head as the wind whipped her hair about her face. The ground below looked very distant, shimmering remnants of the Bifrost cutting a path through green valleys and the river that snaked its way below. ' _No, I'm definitely not ready._ ' Gravity fields held the dwindling supplies of the svartálfar _down_ , and as it grew increasingly difficult to move, Jarnsaxa dragged herself beneath that gap in the door while she still had the chance.

The cargo door snapped shut behind her the second she dropped from the ship. Tumbling through open skies and clutching at that damn circlet with one hand, Jarnsaxa failed to notice. She did gasp in panic on the way down- _briefly_ , holding Rauðr overhead with the other hand as if it would provide stability where there was none. _'Not ready—'_ Squeezing her eyes shut, she allowed the Aether _its way_ , let it unfurl in great, dark streams that eventually caught and lowered her to the ground. _'Not ready, yet almost there—'_

* * *

When her son died, Jarnsaxa dug his grave with her own two hands, scrabbling at the ground until her nails broke off and her hands bled, regenerating as quickly as she damaged them. She'd been left to do so, half-mad in her grief and surrounded by a great circle of the dead, corpses piled upon corpses. The Asgardians burned their dead on funeral barges and watched them drift up into the sky as stars. Magni had always been a bit strange in his way, telling her grandly: _'bury me as a Midgardian, Mother. I don't want to be stuck up there watching the rest of you for eternity. Everything I love is down here!'_

' _My little boy,'_ she thought with a pang of sorrow. ' _My baby.'_

"Hello," she said faintly, mustering a smile for the grave with its soft layer of moss planted there. Mjolnir rested alone on a patch of grass that had regrown around it, proud and solitary nearby now that its last wielder had passed. She knew it would be a very long while- if ever- before someone wielded that hammer, but that didn't stop her from running her hand over its well-worn, plain handle and giving it an experimental sort of tug before moving on. Her son was buried in the castle gardens, not far from a small statue of his wife he'd placed there after cajoling Thor and Odin to let him do so.

Dressed in all the finery left to her, Jarnsaxa lowered herself to the cold, spongy moss that had grown over Magni's grave and stretched out on her back, spreading her arms wide. As if saying hello to an old friend, Rauðr rolled along the uneven ground, only to stop at the base of anothers statue. She breathed in deeply, barely noticing the ship fading from sight as the elves within managed to get the shields up and operational again. ' _I woke them,'_ she told him silently, as if his bones actually listened.

Jarnsaxa told him about Midgard. She spoke of his people who whiled away their mortal years there before dying, bereft and hollow as they yearned for what they lost. The children of Asgard were spread out over that Realm—their descendants were human, yes, but among the strongest and beautiful of them all. They found the best of the humans left behind in their journeys, driven by the need for glory and adventure. She recognized them in the sharp, bright smiles of Sif, and- if she wasn't mistaken- their wit and the green of their eyes. She loved them all- collectively, not as individuals, for their lives were there and gone in the blink of an eye, but she let him know she did her best to help them grow and find one another.

There were _other_ things she spoke of: the passing of long years punctuated by the relief of long sleep. She'd found herself slipping through the small holes in the Realms often enough that she'd learned to find beauty in most of those places. Once, she found herself in Svartalfheim with its cloudy skies that always looked as if they were on the border of a spring storm. She'd walked through its ship's graveyard, and from time to time, found herself kneeling before brittle bones of long dead elves and Asgardians.

So many. _So many._

As Jarnsaxa- who was calling herself 'Natasha' at the time- gazed out at the barren landscape leached free of water, she'd found it in her to weep for the first time in a long while. The Aether had raged within her, that presence that was more a thing of instinct and memory than Odin had ever realized. She'd woken to a stretch of land scoured utterly flat, and her head groggy from days of what Thor had lightly dubbed 'the Aethersleep' such a long time ago.

Asgard fared far better after the Ragnarok than Svartalfheim against Bor, but the battle hadn't dragged on for such a long time, lacking the mass suicides of svartálfar cities, or the countless ships that plummeted from the sky. She'd cried for the long dead, walking the remnants of their holy places.

_I hold the Aether and I remember-_

She lay there and spoke until her voice became hoarse, breathing out the occasional plume of dark mist so the svartálfar knew how to find her if they wished to do so.

When she sat up, the sky was dark and Magni's ancestors were watching overhead. She left him a poor gift of straggling wildflowers from the garden, plucking numerous hairs from her head and binding them tight around the stems to hold them together. Late as it was, she made her little 'ribbon' slowly, fumbling her way through the task without proper light. She still needed time to herself, to make her peace as best she could without pale eyes following her every move.

* * *

While the Realm was a far cry from the home where she'd married and raised a family, there were still houses standing, and cracked walkways that curved along hillsides and into their own little courtyards. Jarnsaxa wandered them for hours, pointedly avoiding the homes of old friends. She walked along patches of earth where the grass was greener and the soil rich with ash. ' _We burned our dead here,'_ she realized belatedly, burned them in great piles when the body count grew too high. More stars had risen with the sparks than she'd ever thought existed-

' _You're on your feet. This is over.'_ She dug the end of her stave hard into the ground, deep enough that inches of it disappeared in rich, black loam, Leaning as much of her weight upon it as she dared. ' _Everything is still here-'_

Once, the massive coils of Jormugand shifted around the Realms, throwing all Nine of them into chaos. The walls of the universe itself wavered as Thor battled the World Serpent; in Midgard and Vanaheim, the waters rose. Men and women died as heroes or villains, and the true depths of what each found themselves capable were staggering. Jarnsaxa did not actively _run_ from the memories, but tried not to dwell on them, wanting to snatch some small peace for herself in the years left to her. As it was, the aftermath of the war that was still being felt across the Realms had left her so far from 'Jane Foster'- or even the Jarnsaxa she'd _been-_ that she'd never felt a compulsion to return.

Doing so now had been a mistake-

' _It wasn't. Even the stars change if given enough time. Nuclear fusion reaction in the core of the stars convert one element to another and-'_ Jarnsaxa rested her head against the stave and exhaled softly, little tongues of dark smoke curling from her lips. _'Everything changes, and matter is never destroyed.'_

* * *

Halfway to the castle, she came across two of the 'faceless' who must have ducked away from their patrol. They never saw her in their corner alcove, their masks pushed up and their over-armor discarded in hasty piles. Their motions were hurried: fingers gripping at strong shoulders, shapely legs wrapped about jerking hips. They were pale as ghosts with their white skin and hair, more awkward than passionate in their rush to keep from getting caught. Jarnsaxa faltered and averted her eyes, nearly stumbling over a rock in the process. She drew in a shaky breath of her own and kept on moving, merely pulling a hand through the trailing ends of her hair as the woman finally gave in to the pressing need to cry out.

* * *

Malekith was in the great mess of the Allfather's library when she found him, hunched over the remains of a table piled high with books. The tight braids pulled back from his scarred face brought his profile into sharp relief, and it only made him look less kind as he straightened, palms braced on the desk. One milky eye lingered near the doorway where she stood. He saw less than he pretended on that side. The near blindness was apparent in subtle way he shifted his stance to get a look at her without having to turn his head much further. She wondered that he kept the scar, but thought the eye was too delicate to be repaired by his sort of magic. _'Only fair.'_

He was a man of few words, but when he spoke, he made them count: _"Eons of war and the last of us were nearly extinguished by a woman making her entrance on her own terms."_

_"I knew you'd get control before a crash."_

The way he regarded her gave Jarnsaxa the distinct impression he was willing to throw her out of his ship _himself_ the next time opportunity allowed. " _The last woman of Asgard,"_ Malekith observed softly, taking in Jarnsaxa in the prized red of Svartalfheim- one of the rare colors known to them in the time before the light. Her best dress was dirtied and the long hours of walking left her hair lank from dried sweat. _"What did you think to find here? There is nothing_ _ **left.**_ _"_

' _There is something left._ ' She left Rauðr propped against a wall and tried not to think about night before, the two of them tangled in the sheets and gasping for breath.

"I was visiting my son," she countered, her tone carrying an unspoken warning. There was _just_ enough of the diplomat in him not to goad her. Still, she caught the quick, sidelong glance angled at her face and stomach in turn. He grimaced, just a flicker of an expression that was there and gone, and she couldn't tell if it was in response to the idea of her paying respects to anyone who died here. It was just as likely he was recalling hazy, old horror stories from his childhood about 'aether-children' consumed in the womb, or at the moment of birth.

" _You buried more than_ _ **one**_ _son."_

"Yes. There's—was-- a baby. His father was a Midg-- a human." She wondered uneasily if he would ever 'see' back to that day, led along through her past by the red-black strands of power that once bound them together. Jarnsaxa wrapped her arms around herself; for all that she was quick to use snippets of his old life against him, the idea of him being able to do the same left her cold.

"I see." He merely went back to the old tome, but she found he spoke the words tonelessly, as if it were too much effort to put much thought into his reply. Malekith acknowledged, and Malekith _moved on._ As if to ward off a headache, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

That was when Jarnsaxa realized she'd spoken to him in Midgardian. Her tongue became ridiculously heavy in her mouth. She cleared her throat and made an absent attempt to straighten the bunched fabric of her skirt. The dress was ruined, but she didn't particularly care now that all was said and done. " _It doesn't matter,"_ she continued dismissively, switching easily to his native tongue.

They both knew she was lying, but were content to leave it at that.

Without glancing up from his work, he swept his arm out in a single, controlled motion that was all carefully harnessed power. A heavy chair scraped across the dirty floor and toward her, nearly hit her in the leg before stopped not far from the desk. He made no move to sit, and certainly didn't invite her to join him in his work. In spite of this, Jarnsaxa wandered over, lowered herself into the stiff, uncomfortable chair brought from the ship by one of the faceless-who-wasn't-faceless. Her legs ached, and she found herself drained of the will to argue with him about something so minor as sitting in a chair he'd moved over and clearly wasn't going to use.

She rested her elbow on the desk, leaning over so she could try and make out lines of elaborate text in the darkness. With a tap of his fingers at a hovering bit of screen, the blue glow there intensified slightly. As the lines of old, Asgardian script became increasingly visible; she studied his steady, capable hand and found a moment of odd kindness in Malekith that was simply that-- a single moment in the very long life of a man who was capable of _terrible_ things. Nonetheless, she was glad for silent company who would not pry and a place to rest her aching feet.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: This chapter goes out to jetplanejane and Sathanas for all of their lovely comments on AO3. You guys have been great!
> 
> This is… mostly exposition, apparently. Jane was kicking around for a thousand years or so, off and on when she wasn't ripping off the Odinsleep. Malekith just did a lot of convenient (read: convenient for me) sleeping, so his stuff seems to be more 'present' focused. AO3ers (and people if they feel like putting in their two cents), do you like the way the POV changes each chapter, or would you prefer I split each chapter between Jane and Malekith equally?


	5. Rocks and Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They said their farewells as warriors ought: with bloodied hands, and a Kurse stone gleaming like an ember between them as it slithered past skin and muscle.

Shortly before his thousandth year, Malekith married. They celebrated the marriage in the old way: circling one another in the ring. They wore no armor, their swords flashing brightly as they spun and struck until sand was crusting over bloodied skin. Her eyes were bright in contrast with her dark face, pale hair already braided in the manner of a princess—for he was only second-in-line for the throne, too young to challenge—and he thought her very impressive for all they never met before that day. He won the combat match handily.

Both were too battered and bloodied to consummate their nuptials that 'night'—another good sign, for it meant they were well-matched. If she had defeated him in the ring, the superstitions of the lower castes would have predicted a firstborn daughter. Instead, they were jokingly teased about a son on the way. Firstborn girls were a blessing, but when was delivered of a boy, neither of them were disappointed. As his new wife was beautiful and welcomed him with open arms, he found it easy to love her: after all, he was young enough that the blood still ran hot in his veins.

Malekith liked his new brother-by-union far _less._

Barely past his rite of adulthood, 'Algrim the Strong' was already captain of his own Ark, carrying himself with such steady confidence that the young prince disliked him instantly. As Malekith grew older and learned patience, the resentment he felt toward Algrim became something akin to- tolerance. If tolerance didn't lead to friendship over the years, the royal family at least had peace within its household. His children had a reliable, beloved uncle to fly them across a universe slightly tainted; if they did not _thrive_ the way they would have before the birth of light, they were still healthy. Life was good and he had little cause for complaint.

The greatest friendship of his life came at a terrible price, forged in the fire of Bor's envy and tempered over the bodies of their loved ones. _Brotherhood of the soul_ came with spilled, Asgardian blood and vows to extinguish every last bit of light they'd allowed to burn along that single branch of the Yggdrasil for too long.

" _If there is to be an end to this,"_ Algrim once said to him, cleaning his firearm with the quick and brutal efficiency of a killer, " _it is not to be found at the feet of the Kursed, Malekith."_ By then he wore the braids of command, though the tired lines had yet to form at the corners of his eyes. While the loss of his family failed to completely rob him of his smiles, countless svartálfar sacrificing their lives upon the altar of the Kursed finished that work. In those days, he planned for death, hoped for life, and lived in a world where one went hand in hand with the other.

By then, he'd come to realize there was something about his brother that was fundamentally- _superior_. With all the blood staining his hands, Algrim tried to remember the svartálfar as _people_ , rather than a soulless weapon to be aimed at Bor’s heart. In this, and perhaps for the first time, Malekith was content to allow Algrim to be the better man.

When his time as _Algrim_ ended, Malekith felt that _difference_ between them more keenly than ever. They'd known one another too long for him not to realize Algrim feared little more than he did the slow loss of sanity the Kursed suffered before they burned to nothing. By then, they had no time before the Convergence. They had no _options_ but to claim Asgard and the thief sheltered behind its walls. There was only the path forward: one last, desperate push for victory as they climbed over the bodies of the fallen.

" _Let my life be sacrificed. It is no less than our people did, or you have done."_

They said their farewells as warriors ought: with bloodied hands, and a Kurse stone gleaming like an ember between them as it slithered past skin and muscle.

* * *

Algrim was dead the moment they said their goodbyes, though Kurse continued to move through Asgard and Svartalfheim using his corpse.

Eventually, Malekith gave in to the reality of appointing a new lieutenant. To be more precise, he _acknowledged_ the appointment. Even in the despair that overwhelmed him when he realized the Asgardians had fallen, he was not the sort to leave such a gaping hole in his command: a lieutenant was needed. Malekith found one. The chosen warrior was simply there to fill the role. From the beginning, he followed every order, performed admirably for all that his king never called him by name or afforded him the courtesies of rank.

Roughly six months after he found Jarnsaxa in Midgard, he summoned that soldier to the Bifrost Gate.

_Let my life be sacrificed. It is no less than our people did-_

The lieutenant arrived in silence, but Malekith didn't have to look at him long to notice the tension in his limbs, and the ramrod-straight way he carried himself _"Show me your face,"_ he said, hearing his own voice as if from a distance. It was curious how _removed_ he found himself from the situation, particularly with the sour tang of bile in his mouth suggesting otherwise.

_I will ensure you a world reborn._

Leaving him standing there, awkward and _waiting_ , Malekith crossed the room to circle the great pedestal that opened the remains of the Bifrost portal. The base of the platform was littered with the remnants of shattered weapons. They were failed 'keys' that burned themselves out after their first use, faster than Malekith could recreate them. He rolled some of the metal shavings scattered on the floor between his fingers and _remembered:_ _survival_ was his legacy.

He heard the soft rustle-and-click of a mask sliding upward, and a muffled hiss in response to the brightness of the night sky. " _In Vanaheim, you served me well."_

" _Yes—"_ The man spoke in a stilted manner, a warrior of the lower classes still learning to adjust to his change in rank. It made him sound tense and overly formal, but he let it slide. He cleared his throat; the sound briefly _phlegmy._ _"My honor to do so."_

Malekith stood abruptly, watching the shavings slither between the cracks in his fingers like the dust of the old universe and all the dead left to rot unburied at home. _Survival was--_ _"It was your honor,"_ he agreed easily, in the utterly assured way of a man born to rule. When he finally looked at the warrior without his helm, he did so stone-faced, shaking the last bits of remaining metal from his gauntleted hand.

" _Saathas,"_ he said thoughtfully, as if trying out the sound on his tongue. Since awakening, it was the only name other than 'Jarnsaxa' he'd spoken. Saathas, like the hiss of metal shards. Saathas, taking the braids of command because Malekith lacked _better._ _"Leave is given for you to use my name, and to show your face before me."_

Saathas was tall and wiry, older than Malekith himself, and worn down by war to the point his utter inability to be ruffled—except right _then and there_ —was easily mistaken for placidness. He hadn't known him in the Time Before, much less recognized his face: long, warrior braids more silver than white with age, a lined face, and a gaping hole at the side of his head where a shot had blown his ear clean away. With the safety of the mask over his face, he'd given Malekith the impression of a man who regarded the world… _stolidly_. Behind its blankness, he carried himself as if he could step over a thousand bodies and still be ready to assume his position the next morning. Whether he would adapt to life without it remained to be seen.

Quite frankly, Malekith felt nothing toward him at all. There was a queer sort of relief to be found in the realization. What did he need from a second-in-command other than _competence?_ ' _More,'_ the wiser part of him knew, but the Algrims of the universe were dead, long since burnt to ash as heroes or martyrs.

" _What should it please the Aether-bearer to be called?"_ There was a momentary pause, then a _name_ , so rarely spoken: “ _Malekith.”_

The fingers of Malekith's hand twitched on reflex, curling into a fist at his side.

' _What pleases the Aether-bearer is not your deference.'_ Malekith turned; Saathas had since managed to collect himself, though he looked at a point past his shoulder, _never_ at his scarred face. He was steady on his feet and tilted his head only slightly in response to the other’s sudden frown. Yes—it was likely Saathas would adapt. Distinguishing himself further was another matter.

" _Call her by whatever name she wishes,"_ he said sharply, _"so long as you remember your place."_

* * *

Balancing the new ranks of military and the demands of soldiers learning the work of engineers, Malekith was too distracted to notice Jarnsaxa's coming and going. There were times when she dropped everything she was doing to vanish into the wilderness of Asgard, a few pieces of their outdated, salvaged equipment strapped to her back. The half-formed shadows of the dreams still plagued him, but sleep came more easily when she was away. He always sensed her return in the prickle along his skin, finding himself watching from the corner of his good eye to see if she'd come hurrying down a corridor.

Jarnsaxa found him sooner rather than later, falling into step beside him on his long trek along the Rainbow Bridge. His wordless greeting was nothing more than a glance down at her bare feet. The toenails were dirty and the soles as hard as leather. Before long, he knew, another pair of boots would disappear from storage. She had grass in her hair and smelled faintly of the garden she often visited. For a woman who seemed so _practical_ at times, she was often at odds with herself. He felt a brief desire to tug out a twig she didn't realize was caught at the dark ends, and then dismissed it as pointless. She would fix it herself when she realized.

They were halfway to their destination before he observed, " _The next time you take apart one of my machines, be certain you can put it back together before you take your leave."_

There was a flicker of a smile at the corner of her mouth that just might have been sheepish. " _I have lived a long time. Finding new things to make me think is wonderful."_ Her steps faltered a moment, the runes on her stave reflecting red off of his breastplate. She sounded faintly alarmed at her sudden realization. " _Did you move the pieces?"_

" _No."_

Jarnsaxa let out a sigh of relief, absently brushing dust from her black uniform shirt with one hand. The off-duty uniform someone had given her— _Saathas,_ he suspected—was utilitarian, latched and buckled in white. She was neither pale-skinned nor dark in the stark colors, but they made her look severe and bony in a way that would have intimidated her Midgardians. She spoke thoughtfully as she tugged at the shirt’s hemline. _"I did wonder if you would ever look upon Saathas' face."_

" _It was time."_

" _Past time_ ," she pointed out.

_Now, you are my king. To you, I swear my loyalty, over the blood of my sister and the souls of her children taken-_

" _Left,"_ he said clearly, and _louder_ than he intended, " _until his mettle was tested."_ He exhaled slowly and willed himself back to the present, to that place of control and certainty upon which he built his existence.

" _You may like him,"_ Jarnsaxa said, gave the shirt another tug.

The reasonable way she spoke, as if it were all so _perfectly sensible,_ caused a corner of his eye to twitch. Promoting one officer over the others to fill the empty spot by Algrim _was_ just that. It was right and natural; the chain of command passing from one warrior to another came with each new generation. "' _Liking' him means nothing.”_ He disliked the note of weariness that crept into his voice, thought he might have imagined it when she failed to smirk or look upon him coldly.

When her foot touched the glassy surface of the 'Road', it sparked red. She went very still, staring down at the clear imprint of her foot on the pathway. The pressure of her weight spread outward, rippling ink-dark and red in turn. It occurred to Malekith that he never saw her venture so far in this direction before. All of her longer trips carried her out along the trees and hilltops, and if the way she faltered was any indication, she'd only looked at the Bifrost from a distance until now.

" _How was it done?"_ she asked slowly, and he didn't have to glance at her to know she was intrigued. The familiar _undercurrent_ had returned to her voice, something that made her seem more flesh and blood than a sacred vessel to hold the Aether. _"Like a soul forge was taken to-"_ She darted ahead of him, running so quickly that she almost had to skid to a stop when she reached the jagged lines where Malekith started the _real_ repair work.

Large chunks of the Bifrost were stitched and woven with glassy threads of energy that ran black in some places and red in others- like the power cores that belonged to his last flagship. Jarnsaxa knelt down to touch one of the brittle places. It crackled wherever she touched. Her body responded with a reflexive 'smack' of Aether that caused the support to stutter and fade out before a dull, sullen glow returned. " _It's terrible,"_ she breathed, though she spoke the words with a queer sort of fascination, as if she could spend hours of her own time trying to recreate his results.

The way she looked up at _him_ was quite similar: as if he were horrible and more than she anticipated all at the same time. His breath caught in his throat as she tucked a bit of hair behind her ear, bit down on her bottom lip. He was seized by a sudden desire to fling her to the ground and strip her bare, to feel her heels drumming into his back as he worked her into a frenzy. The urge caught him _unaware_ , seized him as if he were a younger man still lacking in discipline and at the mercy of his passions. _"It is,"_ he said thickly- it was as terrible a monstrosity as the stars overhead, or his people spread out over Asgard, _"and it will work, Iron-Knife."_

_"Do you think so?"_

_"Wait and see."_

* * *

Before she would visit the Gate for longer than a couple of minutes at a time, a fortnight passed.

As ever, he was _occupied_ when she arrived. Eyes aching from the glow of light, he drew spider-web threads of opalescent energy from the broken shards of a dagger to a new, crescent-shaped blade. His concentration wavered as the Aether 'spoke' to him - and so did the makeshift 'key', bobbing dangerously where it levitated in the air. He grimaced faintly. For all that she'd been born to a lesser race; she was _clever_ , and now Asgardian-taught. She could follow a thread of logic to its end, and it would be a miracle if she didn't offer her suggestions that were frustratingly close to being _good ideas_.

Still, he understood her well enough to know she was here because she _wanted_ something from him—not wordless company. She pored over his diagrams and flickering screens as he worked what some called magic, her 'humans' called science, but what was really something in between. If she wanted to understand what he was doing right then and there, she would simply walk up behind him and ask: _‘What is that?’_

What she said to him was anything but expected: _"Send me through the Bifrost."_

Malekith turned quickly enough his braids slapped against his neck, unable to conceal his surprise. _"So I might pluck your corpse from the jötnar after you die in the frozen wastes?"_ She was baffling like this- still his enemy, an obstacle to cross- but he found her less unsettling with the black of Aether behind her eyes than he did when she swept through his affairs like a whirlwind. _"Woman. If the Aether does not bring you to your end, your fascination with the unknown will be enough."_

The glance she gave him was withering enough to match one of his own, as if she thought herself beyond doing something stupid to further her own understanding. Malekith knew better. She was the sort to do 'something stupid' and then curse herself for it, acknowledging the full weight of her actions only when she was clinging to the edge of a cliff by one hand. _"Find me,"_ she said coolly, no doubt annoyed by what he'd _called_ her as much as she was his dismissal. _"I want to see if you can."_

" _Transparent,"_ he countered, just as coldly. There was no doubt Jarnsaxa would be better than the thinning number of war captives in the dungeons—the ones she never protested being kept, so long as they were well-fed and thrown into a Realm where they had some small hope of survival. Yet--

" _I am prepared."_

" _Prepared,"_ he reiterated, " _to waste my time and my warriors to pull you from wherever you land."_ She was _prepared_ for the frozen world of the Frost Giants, she claimed, or the furthest reaches of Hel. What he sensed with a bone-deep understanding was that she had—not _faith_ —but a sort of respect for what he'd accomplished with the resources available. Of Malekith, she expected his _control_ of the ultimate outcome.

" _Even at your best, you are no Heimdall."_

The name was unfamiliar, but the note of sadness in her voice irked him. It wasn't hard to figure out who she meant. There had been a man who guarded that Bridge once: dark of skin, like his wife, like _Algrim_ \- a guardian who saw and knew all without succumbing to madness. ' _Continue to grieve for them. When you have finished, may you have tears to spare for my people.'_

The corner of his mouth quirked upward in a way that wasn't quite a smirk, but still managed to communicate his feelings to her quite _clearly._ Regarding her from heavy-lidded eyes, he spoke to her in a clear voice that carried across the sizable distance between them: _"There was only one such guardian,"_ he agreed, took pleasure in twisting the knife, " _and now, none."_ Let her deal her verbal blows: he would return them without hesitation.

She went very still. He was reminded of one of the long-haired statues of a warrior woman in the garden where her Asgardian son was buried: the stretch of land with its overgrown flowers, and dead center like some sort of monument, the hammer that scarred his face and nearly took his eye. (Malekith tried to lift it once, failed utterly in spite of all his effort.) "You're as cold as a _jötunn._ Turn the key right now," she snapped, and he knew he'd wounded her by the way she slipped into Midgardian

He saw no reason to waste time on indecisiveness. Even with all the power he commanded, there was no true way to stop her if she wanted to go: Jarnsaxa would not wait forever in Asgard for him to pluck the Aether from her body. When she decided, she would find her own tear in the Realms and slip through. Malekith would follow the pull of the Aether when he found it most prudent. ' _Do not forget, Jarnsaxa,'_ he told her silently, drawing the 'key' of a dagger into his hand and allowing broken shards to fall to the work table, ' _patience is not compliance.'_

She stood at the dented, golden Gate, staring past broken glass as if picking the shapes of loved ones from the skies as she waited. The Bifrost was a twisted mess of warped color as Malekith knelt, jabbing the dagger he'd pieced together into the slot that once held a fine, golden sword. She glanced over her shoulder at him, anger and excitement on her face. " _Quickly,"_ he commanded, cur,t and perhaps just as curious as she lingered with one foot on the monstrosity Asgardian and Svartálfar magic created.

Without a word, she took a large, clumsy step into the spinning tunnel. Malekith watched the thin line of her back until she vanished, mustering every bit of his iron will to clear his mind so he could focus only on _Midgard_. There was a small inlet that once caught his attention, formed by great, glass panels that caved in on themselves, glittering even in nightfall when lit by the light cast by the _Ark._ He'd found it a fitting memorial to yet another dying race. Then—

_And then—_

He 'saw' her there in his mind's eye, landing in a spray of light and water as she scrabbled for purchase on the heavy glass. The _knowledge_ of where she was nearly overloaded his senses, causing him to suck in a ragged gasp. Dizziness threatened to overwhelm him. He sat back heavily, barely managing to pull the dagger from the pedestal as he sucked in another lungful of air, a man unable to shake the idea he would drown at any moment. The impression of her- _for it was too blurry to be an image_ —was gone as quickly as it had come upon him. He sat in an Asgardian tower, yet treaded water in another Realm.

Half-sick, disoriented, Malekith never heard her call, but he experienced a sensation not unlike a _pull_ on the 'thread' that connected them. Two beings that briefly held the Aether within their bodies at once could not escape without a _stain_ of the other imprinted on them in one way or another. Her place in the universe called to him like the Aether, a wordless murmur that let him know: ' _I'm here.'_ There was a cold sweat on his palms as he shifted back onto his knees, gripping the painfully hot hilt of the dagger and feeling its magic reverberating clear up to his elbows as he slammed the 'key' back into place.

Jarnsaxa scrambled back through the tunnel in a flurry of bright light that caused him to turn his head aside with a soft snarl of pain. She was gasping and shuddering, and when spots stopped dancing in front of his eyes, he saw she was dripping wet and waterlogged. He could do little more than breathe raggedly from where he knelt on the floor. She wrapped her arms about herself tightly, as if doing so would ward away the fear she was clearly experiencing.

This new understanding of the Bridge—and one another—brought neither comfort. Malekith was left wondering what he'd _expected_ to happen, and when he'd become such a foolish man.

The dagger in the pedestal let out an ominous _hiss_ of metal and unstable energies. Both of them realized what was happening at the same time and moved _back_ , their movements clumsy and rushed. He shielded his face with his arm; she hauled her dripping body behind a weathered, golden panel.

To say the 'key' exploded would be a lie: it… came apart in all directions, in keen-edged, glittering shards that burst outward in a ripple of energy: too much of it, too bright, and like the Aether, unable to be perfectly contained. She grimaced, he frowned-

" _Do you think yourself brave, Jarnsaxa?"_ He was beginning to catch his breath, though the taste of saltwater lingered in his mouth and he couldn't shake the impression his skin was wet.

Her eyes were large when she stared at him. She touched a spot just beneath the right, blinking as if she found herself unable to see clearly. _"No—only unable to tell if there is too little or too much to lose."_ She sounded very _young_ as she spoke, and by his own standards, he supposed she was. " _No Heimdall,"_ she repeated shakily, taking a few careful steps from behind the pillar to examine a dagger shard that had buried itself in the wall. She poked at it, hissed and shook her hand at how hot it was to the touch. " _I was dropped in the middle of the ocean."_

" _Everything in Midgard has become ocean.”_ Malekith had dealt with worse in his reign than a woman plucked from the water like some sort of brown-scaled fish. _"The odds were against you in that as well."_ His meaning was obvious, delivered in the ham-fisted manner he used when making a point.

She twisted her hair into a dark rope and wrung it out in a manner he could only describe as equally _pointed_. More water spattered on the floor at her feet. The wringing motion she made with her hands gave him the impression she was fantasizing about throttling him. He regarded her with distaste for all that his palms were still damp, for all that they _saw_ one another across the Realms- perhaps would, even if the Aether fled them both in favor of a third host.

_Connection—_ mind and senses gripped fast by the Aether until each of them threatened to bleed into the other.

Malekith had not been alone in the experience, yet took no comfort as realization dawned. He _knew_ ; if some subconscious part of him hadn't _always_ suspected. " _You awakened us,"_ he said wearily. If she’d made him feel oddly young once as they’d walked side by side, that night, she made him feel impossibly _old._ " _Not the chaos that spread across your universe."_ Jarnsaxa awakened _him_ , and his people had no choice but to follow.

When she blinked, her eyes were black and liquid. _"None of you slept quietly."_ In that moment, it was not Jarnsaxa alone who spoke to him. " _You called to me in darkness and I answered."_

* * *

To Malekith, some things were easily forgotten in long times of war: the soft curve of a woman's hip against his abdomen, or even the absentminded, wordless way two people in a bed would wrestle for blankets. That night, there was a surprising lack of roughness between them, as if neither had the energy to put much effort into the act. Sleep was elusive as they lay, sated and sticky in tangle of sheets. Lack of space left them pressed closely together as if they were lovers, instead of two people grabbing an instant in time to let their minds go pleasantly, gloriously _blank_.

" _Chile,"_ she breathed in Midgardian. Her head rested just at the apex of his neck and shoulder. _"Chile, Chile, Chile."_ Her fingers drummed thoughtfully on his chest, _"that would be good. Chi-le. Atacama Desert."_

_“Hm.”_ Malekith made a noise of acknowledgment low in his throat, groggy and noncommittal. She sometimes spoke after sex, rarely in shiväisith, and often reciting ancient formulae that built the underlying foundations of magic. They were so outdated even by Asgardian standards that they might as well have been a child's singsong. Still, the sound of her voice and the utter simplicity of what she recited were comforting. He was remembering small intimacies shared by two bodies that came together in consent, allowing himself the momentary weakness of _listening._

He vaguely realized he must have kissed her earlier, for there was a lingering taste of alcohol in his mouth: faintly sour, mingled with fruit picked from an Asgardian tree, and something he could only decide was ' _Jarnsaxa'_.

" _The only place on Midgard where you can see stars like those."_

Midgardian- always Midgardian when she was this way.

Age and loss had made him a quiet man: _taciturn_. When he did speak, he _commanded_ , and expected the world to listen. With the Aether running hot beneath her skin and her breasts pressed against his arm, he could listen to her talk of skies spangled with light, and of 'Earth' cities long destroyed. In another moment of weakness, he didn’t answer her as a man of war ought: that the stars she so loved preceded the near genocide of another race. She walked a road paved with enough of her own dead, and countless more would die before he was finished.

" _Take it then, if it pleases you,_ " he said in the slow, tolerant manner of a king granting a boon. The Midgardians were too sparse, too easy to kill to be of any use in war, while the most useful of their technology was broken to pieces or lost beneath leagues of water.

She rose easily to the bait, but- as _Jarnsaxa_ more than the keeper of an old, terrible power. She smacked him solidly on the chest as she sat up. Malekith didn't as much as twitch, but he did grunt at the impact: she had plenty of strength in that small, yet capable fist. The sheets were clutched to her chest in a rather pointless display of modesty, the fingers of her free hand knotted tightly in the cloth. "How _thoughtful!"_

If he stopped to think, it was all very- _svartalf_ , the way they tested and prodded at one another. He gathered his magic, _lifted_ her as he had the day of their first battle all those years ago, pushing her up against the ceiling before she realized what he was about. She let out a yelp of dismay, grabbing for the rest of the sheet as it threatened to flutter back down to the bed. He noted with some surprise that the Aether failed to protect her from what could have been considered an attack. Eternal and ever waiting, it was still _there._ All Jarnsaxa did was glare down at him with all the hauteur of an offended queen from where she was pinned to the ceiling.

The flicker of _childish satisfaction_ he felt at the sight of her up there turned to intense interest.

" _So easily,"_ he said softly, _reached_ into her with invisible fingers as he drew in a great breath- and found the Aether woven so inextricably with all that made her _'Iron-Knife'_ that he tugged nothing more than a flicker of mist from her mouth. She was quick to draw it back in, vital to her as air. A note of regret tinged his voice, _"but perhaps not yet."_

" _Malekith,"_ she warned just as softly. ' _No_ , **_not yet,_** _'_ was carried in the undercurrent of his name. It was only the second time he'd heard her say it aloud. " _Put me down."_

He rolled off of the cramped bed in one single, graceful motion and let her fall, all flailing limbs and sputtering outrage as she hit the mattress with a _whumpf!_

" _Malekith!"_

Outrage; yes, that was the voice of a woman outraged.

She raised herself immediately on her elbows, scrabbling to collect the remnants of her dignity. Malekith heard the whistle of the stave through the air moments before it could hit him. His eyes narrowed and he ducked down, the length of wood flying directly over his head with a speed that made his braids rustle. The weapon landed in her hands with a heavy _thwack_. It was just as easy to summon his own blade from across the room, and as it spun end over end, he snatched it from the air by the hilt. Shifting into a defensive position that was more _reflex_ than intent, he angled the sword before him and _waited_.

She slammed the butt of her stave into the floor and _stood_ at the exact moment Malekith rose upright, the pair of them moving as if they were distorted mirror images. They faced one another: king, and- if one was brutally honest- the nearest thing the tattered remains of the svartálfar had to a queen. She was swathed in gray while he was all bare, white skin that twisted and warped to black along his face and neck. As the sheet fluttered the floor, he made it a point not to look at her body, _distracting_ and soft-skinned for all its unhealthy thinness.

" _You are not afraid."_ The neat, practiced mask of a noblewoman had returned. Beneath it, and deeper than Malekith wanted to know or understand her, he sensed the truth of that was finally sinking in. " _I could do anything-"_

In his way, he was afraid. No one could witness the full force of the Aether and _not_ be, much less a man who served as its vessel for a brief time. The fear of it was so much less than the whole, however- so very _minor_ compared to the overall cost of failure. Malekith lowered the blade, and then sent the gleaming sickle of it back across the room with a graceful sweep of the arm and a flicker of thought. _"I see you for what you are."_

" _What is that?"_

" _My final battle."_

* * *

Jarnsaxa was gone the next day, making an over-the-top, reckless exit worthy of the Asgardians themselves: in a Harrow ship she could barely fly, nearly killing a handful of his warriors on her way out the hangar, and shearing the tops off of a handful of stately buildings. He watched from a distance, torn between rage and bemusement as she vanished into space. No doubt she would reach her ' _Chile'_ in that ship, rushing at breakneck speed toward that bright, new possibility that caught her attention.

In spite of his desire to go after her, Malekith remained on Asgard like some sort of primitive barbarian lord of Vanaheim, or a jötunn gloating over a bloody victory. He woke to the sight of their night skies overhead, choked down what scavenged food that didn't make him sick so that the others would do the same. They adapted what unfamiliar technology they could to suit their needs, biding their time as scavengers instead of victors. The smaller, harrow ships faltered, fuel systems worn and in need of replacement parts. The _Ark_ itself became more of a drain on their resources, sucking them greedily dry.

Aching for war as the weeks slipped by, he would repeat Algrim's long-ago words to himself: ' _Our survival will be your legacy.'_

In the out of the way room she'd chosen for herself in Asgard, he eventually found drawings and diagrams on outdated paper, along with a small computer she'd pilfered from the _Ark_. Gold script scrolled and rippled in Asgardian fashion, while her penmanship was neat and precise as ever. With her rows of notations and fairly accurate equations, she'd predicted the next likely location of the portal to her 'Earth'. He'd suspected as much— _expected it of her_ —for some time.

" _Clever woman,"_ he murmured grimly, as if she could hear him.

More surprising was the circlet she'd left behind, gold and inset with blue stones. The meaning of her leaving that behind was ambiguous: a taunt, or an admission of her ties to his people. Malekith sat in her room, studying the mark of nobility that was such an affront to him when it rested on her brow. As he turned the circle of precious metal and gemstones about in his hands, he decided it no more suited her than the dresses she occasionally wore. With vicious satisfaction, he rose to his feet to fling it like a gold disc out the window. It winked when caught by the light, and he watched, narrow-eyed, as it splashed into the water below to be carried off by the current.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: So… this came out long. This came out really long. Hopefully it wasn't overly boring. I don't entirely know what the hell happened. Thank you, godofmischief.org for your Thor: The Dark World transcript! Now I know the names of their damned ships.
> 
> Author's Note Part Deux: ... so I revised this whole thing already to limit unnecessary clunkiness and detail. 4/18/14

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note Part Deux: So I watched the movies again and this was in serious need of some fixing. Italics indicate the use of foreign language. Damn Dark Elves. Anyone have any suggestions for getting bolded italics to show up in stories? I have some emphasized yelling in Dark Elvish that needs to go on. Revised as of 3/25/14.
> 
> Author's Note: So, uh- hi. I have no idea what I'm doing with this, but I had a brain bug and it wouldn't go away until I wrote something. This is obviously AU with entirely too much time-shifting back and forth, not to mention a likely OOC Malekith. I'd like to thank fairfarrenlovelylydia on FF.net for writing the first Jalekith (only?) Jalekith fic I've ever found! Also, a shout-out is due to LadyElemental, also on FF.net: I was pretty stuck on how I wanted to proceed. She was one smart cookie who made use of the name Jarnsaxa, who happened to be Thor's Special Ladyfriend in Norse mythology. From there, it led me to looking up a few things I'd forgotten, and then deciding to butcher the concept of Ragnarok. All due props to you if you're reading this, LadyElemental! (Jarnsaxa: she used it first, boys and girls.) If either of these authors happen to be on AO3, please drop me a line and I'll add the correct names to give them proper credit on this site! Now... should I kill this in a pile of fire or consider continuing? If you have thoughts on the matter, or find any glaring errors in the story, feel free to let me know!
> 
> Disney owns them. Please don't sue me, Walt.


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